


Heart of the Sea

by thebeastinsideusall



Series: Marvel [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Curses, F/M, Hidden Islands, Immortality, Last of Her Kind, Magic, Mermaids, Shipwrecks, Singing, Sirens, Some mythology, balance, bucky is my precious baby, half breed mer, idk what else to tag, tags to be added later, thor knows whats up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeastinsideusall/pseuds/thebeastinsideusall
Summary: Of sea and land. Of water and earth. The balance must be kept, lest the tides rise and the earth sink. Sleeping monsters will wake and hunger will gnaw.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have an idea as to where this is going.

Eyes scanned the turmoil outside the windows of the small aircraft. Barton's hands shook gently with the tremble on the steering column, the force of the winds more than he's ever felt before in all his years of flying. The sky was black, not just darkened or cloudy, black like a moonless night. Yet, it was just past noon, the sun had been shining just a half hour before. His usually cocky behavior as a pilot was shifting to worry he could fly out of this malestrom that had appeared from nowhere. 

"Barton?" Steve's voice was low, nervous, as he watched the hail thrash heavily onto the windshield of the plane. He could feel it, like the rest of them, the shuddering of the plane underfoot, barely held aloft and just trying to fly straight instead of up or down or sideways like the winds were pushing. 

"Trying Cap, but...." He didn't say it, brace for emergency impact, or worse, falling straight out of the sky. He couldn't see anything in front of him. Sheets of rain pelted down, hail shattered against the glass on impact. Clint worried, with the pieces so large, that one might hit just right and shatter the thick glass in front of him. 

Suddenly the plane lurched with a crack of thunder so loud it rang in their ears for moments on end. Everyone grabbed for something to hold onto. Steve for the second pilots seat he was standing behind, Clint for the controls to hopefully pull up the aircraft. Bucky for the strip of a seat belt as he stumbled to his knees, he grabbed with his other hand for Natasha, barely slipping a finger into her utility belt and pulling her to his side as they tried to stand on the slanting floor of the plane. 

"Clint?!" Steve voice bellowed seconds before Clint's fear came true, a sharp chunk of hail hit a tiny crack in the windshield, it spider webbed out and everyone watched in fear filled horror as it kept going until finally, it shattered. Wind suddenly flew inside the cabin, hair was blown about, balances were lost and the plane was lurching. Meters and gauges flashing, warning beeps sounding. Clint couldn't do anything but yell for everyone to brace for impact. 

They were falling, alarms sounding, wind howling, hail piercing and rain soaking. Down they went into the ocean, above nothing but open water. Nothing to crash into but the strength of the sea, the pull of the waves. Down and down, seconds felt like hours, and then they hit the crest of the black blue.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The winds blew and the waves crashed. Tinkling laughter filled the beach as bare feet rushed through the sands, towards the crashing waves and thundering rain. The hail was far off, kept in the eye of the storm, not wanting to hurt the child running and laughing through the wet sands as waves crashed around her slim legs. The shimmering of green, blue and purple scales shone on her calves and thighs. The marking of her parentage apparent as the water changed her skin and limbs with the half change she was blessed. 

The half mer child sang and danced in the waves rolling around her. Knowing she was always safe in any water she in which she played. There would be no drowning, eaten by sharks or thrown about by riptides for this sprite of a child. she was too precious for the sea to destroy, too important to all that surrounded her. 

The ship was off just west of the shoals, in sight but far from walking distance. Row boat safely in view of the beach but far enough into the water to never touch the sand, the land, beneath the waves. He watched with fondness as she danced in the rain. The storm he had made for her. It was her birthday after all, and he would do all he could to make her happy. anything in his power.  
She was nearly three hundred now, though she obviously didn't look like it. In his eyes she would always be this, a mer child too human for her tail and a mer child too human for the sea. There were days where he wished she could age, to be a young woman, to be an adult. But that would mean she would have to accept the world around her like an adult and he couldn't do that to her.

He couldn't force her childlike heart into what the world had become around them, around him.   
So here she stayed, on this island. This cursed or blessed island that kept her young, kept her safe. Kept her from seeing the cruelty of man and of him. Safe from all that was around her. The pollution, the oil, the stink of machines and the land too filled with men for them to live properly. Even the sea that was once so vast and nearly empty, was tamed and overcrowded with nets and boats and people not afraid of what the ocean was hiding. What she was keeping from the world. 

She kept order for the world, and the world didn't know it. For if she ever left this island, the peace would be forgotten and sleeping creatures no man this age had ever dreamed of would come crashing up from the depths and destroy all that man held comfortable and safe on the waters of the earth. 

His heart was her, and he would protect it till he was no longer himself. Until he became part of the ship like all who came before him and would come after him. The purpose of the Dutchman was to keep peace and order. And when the heart of its captain was taken or stolen, all would fall out of place. All would become chaos. Until she was put back where she was meant to be. 

So he watches her laughter and glee from the shoreline, smiles as she plays with the dolphins and sea turtles. Pride as she swims to the boat with no effort from her fins and gills. He hugs his daughter close, and hopes one day neither of them would be held hostage by the sea any longer.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The waves gently crashed on the shore, low tide upon the bodies strewn about the white sands. Wreckage of their plane lost to the sea and very few small scraps left as a sign of their plight and how they got there. Lungs full of water, coughing fits, bile rose and was spat out from chapped, sun burnt lips.

Steve was the first to wake, his mind a fog. A pain in his side he knew was a wound that was trying to heal itself and the salty water stinging into the ripped flesh. Lungs begging for a deep breath as he spat sand and bile from his lips into the wet white sand under him. His eyes searching, burning from the salt water, for his comrades and friends.

A few yards from him lay Natasha, crawling onto her hands and knees. Red hair a mess of tangles filled with sand and seaweed as she pulled herself further away from the strong pull of the waves that were trying to yank her back into the ocean. He caught her eye as he tried to stand and she nodded, I'm alright.

On shaky legs Steve stood and assessed all around him, trying to find Clint and Bucky somewhere in the piles of seaweed and kelp that had washed up with them. Small chunks of the plane scattered around them as he searched the immediate area. A small curse to his left and he found Barton, sitting on his rump and tipping back his boot, pouring water and wet clumps of sand from the shoe. To his right he found Bucky, griping and cursing as he kept clenching and un-clenching his left fist. Sand had crept into the crevices of his arm, causing it to stiffen up and cause him discomfort.

"This is why I was never sent anywhere near the ocean..." He grumbled good naturedly but it still stung for him to comment so nonchalantly about his time with Hydra.

"You alright?" Steve asked, watching as Bucky knelt in the edge of the water to try and clean some of the tiny sand pieces from his arm. It wasn't working well.

"Yeah, fine, considering were stranded." He gripped and sighed softly, flipping his dark hair over off his face and looking around them.

The island was sparse with tall palm tree and vines, quickly the woods became thick several yards from the edge of the sand that gave way to dirt and ferns atop the ground. The sun was crawling towards the west and hadn't hit the apex of the sky yet. It was late morning, maybe. The sun shone so bright, the shine off the water too pristine, the white of the sands all together formed a scene that needed the kind of sunglasses that were so dark it felt like dusk.

"I think the correct term would be marooned." Clint spoke up from beside them, checking his pockets for anything that wasn't soaked in salt water and ruined. Their phones, which Stark assured could survive anything short of a bomb, were malfunctioning and the screens frayed. With nothing left of the plane they were in fact, stuck.

Steve looks back and forth, noticing the beach wasn't too terribly long and both sides in fact started to round out on the edges. It couldn't be too big an island, hopefully. "Let's scope it out." With a round of tired sighs they had nothing better to do until someone realized their plane went down and went in search for them.

 


	4. Chapter 4

An hour passed and then two, they made it to the other side of the island as best they could tell and still hadn't found anything. No chunks of the plane to recover or any sign of civilization on the small island. It was deserted was their main guess, or simply uninhabited because of its small size. Maybe even owned by some rich billionaire just to say he owned an island.

They were all a bit cranky, the heat beat down on them in the midday sun, the sands doing nothing to soften the rays of the sun on their dark mission suits. Clint was thankful he didn't like sleeves, and Natasha had peeled back the top of her catsuit so her bare arms could be free of the sticky salty confines. Bucky's shoulder started to get warm with the sun's rays heating the metal of his arm and he started to stray further towards the trees and shade then by the spray of the waves close by.

As they all convened under a triple trunked palm tree, thankful for the light reprieve from the sun, Bucky heard it. He wasn't sure what it was, kept shaking his head and thinking it was a remnant of the salt water in his ears from the fall into the sea. But as he sat there and kept hearing it, he couldn't deny the pull he felt to whatever he was hearing.

It was coming from the trees and brush, further into the island and away from the shoreline. As if he really couldn't stop himself, he ignored Steve's concerned and curious voice as he and Clint both stood and started toward the center of the isle. The closer they got, the deeper they went, the louder the sound was. Finally, once reaching a small clearing around a palm tree surrounded grotto. They found what had been calling to them.

The little pond was full of fresh water, a small waterfall at its back. A picture from a fairy tale book the way the water was clear and the suns rays glowed down upon the scene. But that's not what made it so fairy like, so unheard of and strange, downright impossible.

There was a girl on the rocks by the edge of the water, long sun golden brown hair being combed with ivory tool over richly tanned skin. The nakedness of the girl before them didn't raise much of a question mark. It was he clear as day scales and fins she sported all over her limbs and back. The shimmering colors a myriad of rainbow jewels against soft skin.

Natasha balked at the sight, her instincts telling her to run far from the sight before her but she didn't understand why. Until Bucky and Clint started to slowly inch their way out of the trees and towards the small grotto with the singing girl. Natasha's hand reached out and Bucky only swatted her grip away like a fly, using his metal arm to rebuff her touch so he could keep going. Entranced by whatever was going on. Her voice lilted and rang through the trees, and Steve was soon to follow the other two men as Natasha's eyes widened. Something was wrong, so very very wrong.

"Hear my voice beneath the sea... Sleeping now so peacefully... At the bottom of the sea... Sleep for all eternity..."

Like the song of a siren long since extinct and dreamed up, her voice carried into the ears of the three grown men and had them moving of their own accord. Natasha didn't know what to do. This scene beyond anything she'd ever seen before. So she took a deep breath and grabs for Steve first.

"Steve!"

 


	5. Chapter 5

The sound of a loud voice that was not her own caused the girl to gasp, the comb falling into the water with a small splash. Her voice now silent as she stared at the strangers yards away from her. Fear widening her eyes as the men shook their heads and stared at her curiously. The woman, because she had never seen another female before in her life and could only assume, looked at her angrily.

Her hands scrambled and webbed feet clawed at the rock she perched upon, trying in vain to get off the dry rock and into the water around her. Toward the safe haven of the underwater cave just beneath the waterfall. But the rock was too sun dried and sharp without the wetness of the water to dull the scrapes and cuts she was giving herself. Her body too afraid to do anything but flounder and scramble and flop as she tried to get to the water.

A huge booming sound like that of a cannon but ten fold, sounded around her. Echoing through the grotto and silencing all manner of wildlife and fauna around them. The crack of rocks rang out and fearful cerulean eyes stared unblinking as the rocks above the waterfall started to crack and turn to dust as they fell. Blocking her exit with loud splashes and thunks of rocks hitting calms waters.

Her escape fouled, she merely sank into the shallow waters at her feet, the slow rippling waves pushing just at her hips, tears brimming her eyes. She was terrified. There had been no man on this island in hundreds of years. No feet beyond hers had set on the sands and no man had ever spoke besides her own father in decades upon decades. Man was not supposed to be here. Man was no allowed here. Man would destroy the circle.

She turned as feet approached, her back pressed against the rocks and arms crossing over her chest to protect herself as the group came forward toward her. Anger filled eyes glared at her as if she had done something wrong, as if they were here by her design. By gods she hoped not, but she had never exhibited any form of black magicks before in her long years. She cold barely call upon the sea creatures to play most days. She could not summon strange men or women out of thin air.

A gun, very unlike to the ones her father had shown her a hundred years before, but more sleek and smaller then what she remembered. It pointed straight towards her, right between the eyes, the smell of gunpowder still strong in the air from the shining arm holding the weapon. If she had been any more frightened, she may have fainted then and there at the sight of this icy glare and armored man staring her down, making her squish herself smaller into the rocks face to simply be free of his glare.

"Who are you?" His voice was cold, like Atlantic ice fields around a wooden ship in the dead of winter. A shiver of fright ran up her spine and she squeaked out a terrified sound as he stalked a step forward, standing tall above her.

She could not speak save for the trembling of her lips and the tears streaming own her face in full force now. The shaking of her shoulders told them how frightened she was, how unknown her voice had effected them. Yet she found no quarter from even the woman's eyes.

"Who, are, you." Now it wasn't a question, no it was an order. Her eyes frantically searched for an escape and found none. Her cave entrance was now forever blocked by sharp rocks and jagged stones. She was trapped.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

The way she cowered, the way she cried. The child didn't know what she had done in the slightest. Clint was the first to really move after the gunshot and James' heavy icy tone. His hand gently touching Bucky's forearm to get the metal armed soldier to lower his weapon. Clint crouched down, almost eye level with the sprite like girl trembling in the water.

"What's your name sweety?" and its like she's been slapped by the name he calls her, her eyes close and she turns her face to her shoulder, nails digging into the rock and muddy sand beside her as if waiting on a hit.

"Come on now, not gonna hurt you okay? We'e just confused, like you are." His voice is the tone and calm of reason. Easing Bucky and Steve into more calmer stances as Natasha keeps a careful eye on the girl before them. Watching as more scales pepper over sun kissed skin the longer shes in the water.

Natasha's follows suit, thinking maybe a feminine voice and presence could disuade the girl from acting out and releasing anymore unknown abilities around them. She didn't quite like the idea of her being alone with three grown men under a spell of some sort. "It's okay, we're a little scared too."

The girl glanced back up, she still shook, she still cried. There was no consoling her at this point and they all knew it. "You... you need to leave." She flicked her gaze upwards to the right, towards the south where far, far in the distance a dark cloud was forming miles away.

They ignored what she said and focused on the fact her voice didn't have the same effect when speaking as when singing. It was a welcome relief she wasn't an immediate threat, for the moment.

"Why do we need to leave?" Clint's voice made her looks back at them and she started to shake harder, like an earthquake was sounding but only inside of her small body.

"You need to leave!" She yelled, almost an inhuman screech and Clint flinched while the hearing advanced soldiers shook their heads from the shrill sound.

"Why?" Clint spoke harder, watching with worry as the tips of her ears grew into points, sprouting from her damp sand speckled light brown hair. The way her eye teeth suddenly started to sharpen and her eyes paling from cerulean to stormy white grey.

"Mortals are forbidden..." He voice was small, terrified. Of what she was saying or from their presence or maybe from the wind picking up and the ominous presence circling around the island out from nowhere. Whatever it was, she was afraid of something.

The wind picked up, the sands swirling about booted feet. The waves crashed and a storm approached. But it wasn't a storm, it wasn't a random mock of weather from the carribean. IT was a malestrom of brutal strength and power that owned the waves and the sea at its beck and call. Her head turned to the south where the blackest cloud was closing in on the island, a relieved sot of look on her face as the soldiers around her gathered their weapons against the unknown.

"You don't belong here..."

 


	7. Chapter 7

From the sea came a wave, growing so high and so fast, its blackness sweeping back and forth beneath the in the tangoed forms of seaweed forests. Bucky glanced to the girl, blinking his eyes wide as he noticed the scales about her skin flare, moving along her flesh. Her eyes were an eerie kind of white grey that seemed to glow. The winds picked up around her and her fingers, webbed between the small bones and skin, gripped at the rock and sand. He saw her plan before she moved, yet even he was too slow to grab and catch. The phantom touch of course strands of hair brushed over his fingertips but that was all he could manage as she was gone. The winds almost keeping him from her, making it difficult to find footing and give chase, but he did.

His boots slipped on wet uneven ground and his lips tasted sand as he leaps over low branches and ducked beneath curtains of vines and limbs. She was quicker, dodging in and out of his grasp, but she was smaller, weaker and much lighter than his near three hundred pounds of solid muscle, not including the arm. They’d passed the cropping of trees that had surrounded her tiny grotto and she was making her way to the open ocean as he caught her. His fist in her hair, and a scream rent from her lips as she was yanked back to the ground and held there with tears in her eyes as she attempted to claw at his wrist holding her.

“Bucky!” Steve yelled over the thunder and lightning shattering around them, winds whipping around them and nearly pushing Natasha’s to the ground with their strength. Clint stayed in eh copse of trees and held the red head to his side, anchoring them to a thick trunked tree. Steve’s blue eyes, angered by Bucky’s sudden attack on eh poor girl, glared through he sandy air to his best friend. Sometimes, Bucky just wasn’t all there, and other times, he was simply a loose cannon. Easily angered and hard to slow.

Steve went to order Bucky to release the shivering girl, when the rain started. Pelting down on them, stinging flesh with its sharp bite and seeming to freeze warm bodies with frigid water. The lightning seemed to collect dn crash closer and closer toward the island. The waves crashing the shores grew angrier, seaweed and debris washing up on eh shore with every pass. Smaller hands scrambled at the fist in damp hair. She still hasn’t said anything else, instead whimpering in fear.

When the sound of a cannon broke through the bubble of chaos around them, two sets of blue eyes widen as the cannon ball sunk into the sands yards from Bucky’s booted feet. Sand flew up in a curved wall and then settled. A solid back cannon balls half sunk into the sand. Bucky’s grip hadn’t loosened but the girl started to fight anew,

“Father!“ and with that scream, shrill and full of fear, figures started to emerge from the crashing waves.

Men. Possibly. Swords drawn, rusted and covered in the plant life of the deep sea. Faces covered in starfish and crabs, a conch shell so large it settled between a set of shoulders perfectly. Ten, then fifteen, then twenty. Surrounding and coming closer and closer. Movements easy, even for the man whose entire neck and head was made up of what seemed to be the head of a hammerhead shark.

Steve stepped back, and Bucky seemed to realize what he had done and was releasing his hold on the girl with scales peppering her flesh. She crawled then leaped to her feet only to stumble in the sands until she was at the feet of the man shaped things coming from the roaring waves. She was gently helped to her feet, several hands pointing towards the waters where she practically ran as fast as she could until the waves gentled in a small bubble around her claves. And then she dove under the surface, the calmness following her and vanishing deep into the heavy blue-black sea.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Thunder rumbled and lightnings crashes, waves rolled while the small group held guns aloft to the man like creatures slowly circling them on the beach. Rain pelting down, making visibility scarce, wind whipped hair about and there was booming laughter from the things around them. Grotesque things, where sea life and men’s bodies seemed to merge, creating monsters that breathed with gills and laughed with sea water pouring from their grinning lips. Scabbards were drawn and pointed.

The group had no words, had no idea what was going on, but finally training won out, Steve stood taller and came forward. Though when he tried to speak he was drowned out by the storm crashing on around them. The monsters’ laughter was an echo on the winds. Cannon fire continues, while shots ring out from guns born of this century while sword of another hit and slash at metallic arm and shield. They’ve never fought this way before. Against something like these things, they were against now. Aliens and robots were different than things born from the deepest trenches of the oceans.

When Natasha is on the sands, a sword tip at her throat. When Clint gets slashed in the arm and must drop to his knees in agony as he grips his mangled flesh. When Steve is punched so roughly with the hilt of a sword he lands on his knees, shield dropping to the sands and sinking into them. When Bucky is kicked in the back of the knees and he himself falls to his ass on the sands, does the lightning crash just into the shoreline. A marking burning into the sands, burning so hot and bright the symbols are etched into the ground with diamonds sparkling. Red cape flowing in the breeze, calming just around the form of the tall and thick body of Thor himself. Does the fighting slow and finally draw to a close. The group pinned and held at sword point as Thor stalks into the fray and offers his palms up in pliancy.

But its anew side of Thor they’ve never seen, his face in hard and his smile is gone. There is a heavy seriousness in his features as he opened his lips and addresses the monsters around his friends. “I have spoken to your Captain, and I myself will take care of these trespassers on this sacred plot.” It takes a moment but once the hammerhead man kneels back and takes his sword from Natasha’s throat, the rest follow suit. Muttering in all kinds of different dialects long since forgotten by the tides and lands. And they simply sink back into the waves of the sea. The storm calming and the winds dying.

Thor turns to look at his friends and he sighs, deeply from in his very body and then turns. Motioning for them to follow to his portal that still stands open in the sands. Glittering under his boots, as the rain continues to slowly gentle, still soaking the demi gods hair and darkening the red of his cloak.

“come my friends, you have stumbled upon something that was never to be found by mortal eyes.” A solemnness to his tone that broke no argument or cause for his usual mirth for battle and fights. Steve follows, albeit slowly and filled with confusion.

The rest follow but Bucky glares at the far-off distance in the waves. Across the sea and on the edge of the horizon, he sees it. The shape of sails billowing in the heavy breeze and the sight of jaw like bow of the ship he clearly sees against the navy blue of the sky overtop the black of the ocean. A ship, not a boat nor a barge nor anything that ahs been built on this earth in so very long.

Bucky sees a ship, with sails made of netting and underwater moss. With a bow like that of a monster ready to snap any in its wake and with rows and rows of cannon ports along its sides. And standing on the deck, wrapped in a cloak of black that ruffles against her claves and arms, stands the girl whose voice brought him to his knees more deeply than any set of words created and instilled by Hydra.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are Love
> 
> Comments are Life


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